Rants and meanderings from a science fiction writer to his future fans, or anyone else who'll listen, for that matter.

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Mr. Hellstrøm is an average drunken profligate, cynical bastard (read: disappointed romantic), and all-round lazy crazy son-of-a-bitch out to become a cult in his own right, shamelessly promoting himself (haha, good luck with that old boy) and the book before it is even done. Nonetheless, he does have an interesting slant on things now and again, as I can testify. After all, no one knows him better than I do.

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We didn’t feel our hearts beat when we climbed the hill. And we were idiots. That’s about it, kids, in a bloody fucking nutshell. Otherwise, there’s hardly a difference between being young and old. Experience makes you a tiny little bit wiser (a really, really tiny bit), and your body isn’t blessed with adamantine health anymore. It’s not better, or worse, it’s just different. You’ll still be a fool. You won’t have less problems, or more. You won’t love or hate yourself any more or less than you did… if you’re lucky you’ll be faintly aware of why, but only faintly, because you will also have realized that it doesn’t matter. All that, or you’ll end up a grumpy old cynic like myself.

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Hellstrøm: Before you ask: I got the idea for the book from the dead guy buried in my garden.
q: …
Hellstrøm: Don’t look at me that way.
q: …
Hellstrøm: I said, don’t look at me.
q: …
Hellstrøm: To be exact, I got the whole book from the guy buried in my garden. And before you ask, yes, I killed him. He was an old friend, he gave me the manuscript to read, and as soon as I realized that it was a masterpiece I killed him and gave it out as my own.
q: …
Hellstrøm: Don’t you fucking look at me! *puts inhaler over mouth and sucks greedily, glowering at interviewer insanely*

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Don’t quite know how to regive the little trilling, whistling noise I am thinking of. Phonetically, that is. If you were sitting in front of me, you would hear it. It is a noise that expresses the will to dominate, it says: I am going to win. But it is also a noise that seeks an echo, like a damned bat looking for it’s prey. It says: I’m on a roll, show me where you are, you little bastards, so I can bear down on you, and finish you off. I am a fruit bat, at the moment, though. I am enjoying an apricot, with a drop or two of wine to go with it. But even a fruit bat won’t say no to meat, if it should present itself.
Listening to The Floppy Boot Stomp, from Captain Beefheart.

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Guttural ska. Root-punk-ska, combined with east-european influences, Klezmer, Russian traditional shit, Hungarian, Czech, what-the-hell-do-I-know and so on… it’s worth listening to. I love music that has mixed influences.
Perhaps some of you may not know all of the different influences that went in to rock ’n’ roll. Rock ’n’ roll is crossover if there ever was such a thing. People talk about independent and crossover like it was something new… they talked about music like that in my youth too. What a joke. There is and never was any music that isn’t crossover. Any good band has many influences and is inspired by the bygone.
I remember Allen Toussaint, I saw him play piano in a small place in New York, damned if know what it was called. It was one of the moments which made me believe in music, no matter that I never had the talent to be a true musician.
He played piano… he was alone. He played a song that began in classic, for which, at the time, I had no real ear. But nevertheless I could hear the beauty in it. And slowly, virtuously, he mixed it with cajun elements, with elements from rock, and soul… he made a melange out of it. In the end he was playing New Orleans blues piano. And he showed, effortlessly, beautifully, how all music stands together, how classic influences rock, soul, blues, punk, ska… how everything influences everything, to this very day.
I’ll never forget that experience.

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I’ve just infected you. I’ve planted an idea in your head. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is. I’ve influenced your mind. It doesn’t matter what I say, you can’t help listening. Stop reading. But even then, it is too late. This is what keeps authors writing. It’s the feeling of power. A single, a single, a single word can change the world. Now that is power. Fuck superheroes, fuck soldiers, they haven’t the slightest chance against ideas.